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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28699455">Pen &amp; Paper</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweatingHerLadyBollocksOff/pseuds/SweatingHerLadyBollocksOff'>SweatingHerLadyBollocksOff</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Thick of It (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>And Has To Do Workshops, And Repressed Emotions, Barely Disguised Love For Nicola Murrays Hips, F/M, Malcolm Goes To Prison, Malcolm Has Stationery Opinions, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:40:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,759</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28699455</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweatingHerLadyBollocksOff/pseuds/SweatingHerLadyBollocksOff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of the Goolding Inquiry, Malcolm goes to prison. And a mandatory poetry writing workshop. He may as well make the best of these things.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nicola Murray/Malcolm Tucker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Pen &amp; Paper</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This piece was inspired by the Utterly Gorgeous "Note" by 17yr old poet Linnet Drury, shared on Twitter by her teacher @KateClanchy1. Malcolm's poem is a reworked version from my own brain.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Malcolm Tucker does not - has never - written in pencil. Gracie jokes that he was born with a smooth ballpoint pen in his tiny, clammy fist, and it could well have been true. When he was about eight, he was gifted by his mother one of those pens with four different colours, and the combination of the tactile joy of pushing the sliders down and the sheer thrill of having four pens at your disposal was enough to spark a life long obsession. Gracie's gel pens were next, passing over the shouty reds and exotic bright blues to pinch a deep, slightly sparkly green and a smooth, soothing navy. She didnae need them, couldn't even write proper sentences yet. Master Malcolm Tucker, on the other hand, had Plans to Make and Things to Write. With age, came a natural progression to multipacks of sensible, black ballpoints, trying his best to pick up something from formal education even if it was only neat-ish boxy handwriting and a deeply repressed interest in creative writing. With middle age, one was allowed to luxuriate a little, and the weighty deep blue and gold Parker that was presented to him by a grinning Grace has never left his suit pocket since. </p><p>He doesn't wear suits any more. Or, at the moment, perhaps he should say, since nobody knows what's coming next. What's <em>after this</em> as his prison therapist keeps saying, as if his twelve week sentence is an extended diversion from what he's Actually Supposed to be Doing. It sort of is. But the shithole, and shithole it is, despite the minimal security, is oppressive and all-consuming, and it's difficult to conceptualise an "after this" when "this" is so huge and un-ignorable. So dark, at least metaphorically. He's reminded of the time Lucy asked him what he wanted for dinner later halfway through his genuinely eager attempt to resolve their marital disharmony through the insistent press of his tongue against her. He finds he can't think about an "after this", though everyone else seems to find it perfectly easy. He's always been far too busy in the present to have much regard for the promise of the future or the regrets of the past. Malcolm Tucker lives and dies by a series of five minuteses, and so he has no need for pencils. Don't write it if you don't mean it, and if you've written it already, don't bother thinking about it again. </p><p>Such affirmations worked well for speech writing, but are proving less useful for the mandatory poetry workshop he has found himself in on this, the most uncomfortably long and slow Wednesday morning he has ever experienced. And he's had his fair share of shit Wednesdays. Usually its cooking on a Wednesday, which he enjoys, but the instructor is on maternity leave, and so here he is. Yet again having to meet and greet someone else, a small bespectacled soft-spoken man who he can't for the life of him remember the name of, despite only meeting him five minutes ago. The man's name (Martin? Marvin? Merlin?) was immediately wiped out of his mind by the innocuous "just grab a pencil and a worksheet and take a seat" that followed. Malcolm Tucker is a Man. Grown men need neither worksheets nor pencils. The hesitancy implied by the scratch of graphite against paper grates on his nerves, phsyically, and the words never <em>flow</em> quite the same. Write it in pen or don't fucking bother, he thinks, taking a ballpoint from his jeans pocket and stamping his name across the top of the worksheet. It takes him a moment to realise that he's written (all caps) MALCOLM T., as if his worksheet might get confused with Malcolm P's, as if they're still sat on the carpet in front of Mrs Bevan in Primary 4.</p><p>Marvin raises his eyebrows, but they're nowhere near as determined and dark as Malcolm's, a sandy wispy blonde that lacks any sort of impact at all. He starts prattling on about this being a safe space, and Malcolm bites his tongue so as to not snort out loud. It's all bullshit to him, but he forces himself to remember that the pasts of the other men in this room are not quite as rosy as his, although his is pretty fucking muddy. It might be important to them, to someone, to know they can write and talk about whatever it is that's bubbling away in there, so he forces himself not to comment. Then smiles to himself at the irony of "no comment". He's still got it. Martin's still talking, but Malcolm's bored, terminally bored, so he flicks through the worksheet to try and get ahead. He'll toss off some work of literary genuis, a five page epic before the rest of these sad fucks have even gotten around to their name and today's date. Everything is a competition to Malcolm, and today him and Emily Brontė are going head to head. Come and get it, Em darlin. Eat my fuckin ink. </p><p>What are the most cliche poetic devices? The things that are cliche are the things people actually want, that's what he learnt from Lucy, anyway. And she wasn't often wrong, even if she was often unreasonable and frequently profoundly irritating. She knew what women wanted, knew about all that soft, tender nonsense that dissolved on his tongue like candy floss before it could ever make it out of his mouth. Pathetic fallacy, that's one. When the weather's shit when you're feeling shit. That must be why everyone in Britain is so fucking depressed. It's got to be about a love interest, really, a poem, or at least he reckons the best ones are. The best ones are the smutty ones, but that's probably not the goal here. He'll come back to that, the love interest. There's no point writing what isn't true, so he'll have to think of <em>someone</em>. There's got to be some hope. In the poem, not his love life, there's no hope there. But the poem has to have some contrast, some tension, a before and a - oh. He knows who it is. He knows. </p><p>"After", she'd said, ever so softly, relentlessly soft like the hotel room carpet under her toes. He'd watched them wriggling against the fibres through her thin tights. Probably tights, not stockings, since they were working, but there was only one sure fire way to find out. "I said I'd ring the kids, tell them how my speech went, so I'll -" she faltered, then waves her phone with a smile that clearly projected a lot more confidence than she actually felt. "I'll go and shower and speak to them and say n'night, and then I'll come back. To you. After. If that's-?" She'd checked, and he'd nodded. Five minutes thinking time probably wasn't going to change her mind, if the flush high up her neck and the two dry martinis she'd had were anything to go by. It may well have been at least the third biggest miscalculation he's ever made. She never came back. </p><p>He can't write it about Eastbourne. Its much too raw, much too real. Whatever this poem is going to be, it needs to be about the future, both so he can avoid thinking about the past and so that he can proclaim proudly (to himself only) that he actually spent some time thinking about what comes next. So it has to be about the future. And it can't be about her, not directly. Not physically, or in any sense that suggests that he knows her or presumes to know her. He's developing a budding conscience, sprouting up like nettles between concrete, and it feels uncomfortable to write about her olive green eyes, those dark long lashes, the curve of her hips beneath those prissy dry-cleaned dresses. The touchable, firm muscle of her thighs peeking out from that ridiculous grey dress as she bent down to pick up her heels before winking at him and leaving his hotel room. That's not what he wants. Or that's not what he can comprehend wanting right now. Either way. If its going to be about her, it has to be about him too. Here, now, with Merlin droning on and the sound of worksheets being turned over by fifteen other pairs of hands, is the moment Malcolm will finally allow himself some introspection. His comedic timing has never faltered. </p><p>There's another long moment, between picking up the pen and starting to write, where he thinks he can't do this anymore. Maybe he never could. It's been years since he's actually written, the physical manual act of moving the pen and making representations with your hand, instead of smacking plastic with your fingertips and firing off increasingly fucked off emails into the ether. There's something about displaying your vulnerabilities so brazenly that makes his stomach flip, and he's not sure if its his own anxiety or the fact that that's what Nicola did. Always. Displayed her vulnerabilities and neuroses like a walking, talking billboard. She was (is?) what she is, or was. She is what she is, is what he's trying to say. Everything is out there to read on her floaty, floral sleeve. There's no hiding from a woman like that. He briefly considers the pencil, thinks it might be easier if it's not permanent, but he knows he'd regret rubbing it out. Write it properly, or don't write it at all.</p>
<hr/><p>When all this is over, I will meet you in the park,<br/>
The one where you used to take your lunch,<br/>
A midday trip to reaffirm your pact with Nature,<br/>
Who reminds me of you,  <br/>
And we will drink burnt coffee like it doesn't matter. </p><p>It doesn't matter that it'll rain so hard we forget what<br/>
It was to be dry,<br/>
That you'll mourn the absence of the umbrella <br/>
Left at home, moving through grief, anger,<br/>
 Bargaining, until you reach for me.</p><p>It doesn't matter that you'll be shivering,<br/>
For once from the outside in <br/>
Rather than shaking your emotions out unbidden,<br/>
I haven't yet learnt how to do that,<br/>
You'll teach me if I listen.</p><p>It'll rain so hard we can't tell which are tears and<br/>
Which are raindrops,<br/>
Or whose, sparkling, are first to fall like misplaced jewels,<br/>
Let's leave them here unclaimed, <br/>
For someone else to find.</p><p>When all this is over, I will be older, and no wiser<br/>
In any way that really matters<br/>
Except that I can listen better<br/>
Now I've learned to stop talking.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You can find Linnets poem here: https://twitter.com/KateClanchy1/status/1346511901530980354?s=19</p></blockquote></div></div>
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